


we're nowhere hearts

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Background James Barnes/Natasha Romanova, Different realities meeting, Doubles, F/M, M/M, Multiple Buckys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-16
Updated: 2013-01-16
Packaged: 2017-11-25 16:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sort of sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/548386">colors bleed together</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <i>He tries not to think about it but every night he dreams of holding Bucky back from that door, of keeping him even if that's selfish and unfair.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>But now there's a new Bucky. He's thin, tired and when Steve kneels down he looks like he's looking at a ghost.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"What are we? Some waypoint for errant James Barnes?" Tony grumbles behind him but this Bucky is just staring at him.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Am I dead?" </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're nowhere hearts

This Bucky isn't like the other, Steve can see it immediately. Unless things have gone horribly wrong in that other reality. He doubts it. He saw the way they looked at each other, the way that Bucky had run to his Steve. So happy to finally be back with the man he'd fallen in love with. Leaving Steve alone.

He tries not to think about it but every night he dreams of holding Bucky back from that door, of keeping him even if that's selfish and unfair.

But now there's a new Bucky. He's thin, tired and when Steve kneels down he looks like he's looking at a ghost.

"What are we? Some waypoint for errant James Barnes?" Tony grumbles behind him but this Bucky is just staring at him.

"Am I dead?" Bucky whispers, ignoring Tony.

Steve shakes his head. "No, different reality." Bucky looks almost disappointed but gets to his feet. He stumbles and Steve reaches out to catch him without thinking. It hits him suddenly as his hand curls around Bucky's arm that the other arm is gone, the sleeve has been pinned up. "Bucky…"He breathes.

"It's a long story," Bucky whispers. "Couldn't maintain it."

Steve fits his arm around Bucky's waist, taking more of his weight on himself. Without the metal arm, he's noticeably lighter. "You'll have time to tell it, come on."

"Just let me sleep a little bit first, da?"

The slip into Russian surprises him but Steve nods. He can feel Tony watching them through his helmet but Steve refuses to look back. He's got a Bucky who needs him and he doesn't care if it's selfish, he's not letting go.

-

They lock him up in a cell at first, subject him to all kinds of tests. They don't want Steve to see him but once Steve finds him, it doesn't take much for the guards to be convinced him to let him in.

Bucky is curled up on the bed, reading a book. 

The first thing that hits Steve, now that he finally has a chance to actually look at him, is he's too skinny. The standard issue SHIELD closing hangs off of him. The left sleeve is pinned up.

Steve sits down hesitantly on the other end of the bed, not wanting to be too pushy.

The book gets set aside and Bucky looks at him. His eyes are tired, with that same haunted look the Bucky that's already there has. But there's something else, maybe it's the starved look in his face. The slight scruff on his cheeks and chin.

"Have you managed to sleep?"

"You're kidding right?" He has an accent more like Natasha's then Steve's own Bucky. Stuck in between. The syllables twisted and distorted. Steve likes it, he's not sure why. "Tried, but haven't been able too."

"You could take something."

Bucky laughs sharply. It's like his elbows and knees, sharp and unforgiving. "You'll forgive me for not wanting to drug myself in this situation."

Steve smiles ruefully and realizes Bucky is right. Steve wouldn't want to take a sedative either. "Come home with me." The offer is out of his mouth before he realizes it. He's not even sure if SHIELD would let him take Bucky out of the building. But then he looks again, really looks, at Bucky curled up like he is, limbs wound tight. "What happened to you?"

Bucky's eyes slide away from him. "It's not a good story."

"I don't care."

"I really don't want to talk about it. Not here anyway."

Steve looks at the door and then back at Bucky. He doesn't need anymore time to make his decision, he got his own Bucky out of a heavily guarded Hydra base. This should be nothing. He holds out a hand for Bucky, giving him the option but it only takes him a moment to decide.

The guards stammer a protest but there must be some look on Steve's face because they both shut up and let them walk out.

They get all the way out, much calmer then Steve's own break out. The second they're outside, Bucky's hand finds his, gripping tightly.

"The last time I was in New York City I wasn't…I was…there was some Russian ambassador here for the UN, they thought he wanted to defect so I was sent over. Put a bullet in his head, another in his heart."

They wander through the city. SHIELD is probably already tracking them. Bucky is tense, Steve can feel it where their shoulders bump. He's not entirely surprised when Bucky swipes a bag of clothes from some passerby and at the next opportunity changes into jeans and a t-shirt. Steve slips his arm around Bucky's shoulder, feeling the lines of bone underneath cloth and skin and muscle. Trying not to think about the missing arm between them.

"Your own James Barnes, he was the Russians prized killer. I was too broken for that. They didn't…"

They stop outside the subway entrance, looking down the staircase, well lit but somehow gloomy. "What happened?" Steve asks again.

"You really just want to know, don't you?" Bucky whispers.

"I want to help you," Steve say solemnly.

Bucky considers him for a minute. Steve feels like he's being compared to some invisible standard, maybe the Steve that this Bucky knew. He hopes he doesn't fall short. "My Steve never got big you know. They told me he died on the table, couldn't handle the…whatever made you big." Bucky starts down the stairs. Steve is sure that the way they're standing, walking so close together, constantly touching, it's not normal. They should create space. They barely know each other, but Steve needs to keep him close.

He needs to keep this fragile James Barnes safe.

"They never told me much though. They never trusted me either." On the subway, to get to Steve's place, they're pressed closer by the crowd, and Bucky slips his arm around Steve. "I didn't have a Steve there, to tell them different. Natalia tried…" His forehead presses against Steve's neck, his hair scratches Steve's skin. Steve couldn't imagine losing his Bucky, to watch him go to war and never see him again and he holds onto this Bucky tighter. "Not that it should matter, I'm not very trustworthy right now. I don't know why you do."

"Because I want to. Because you need me to."

Bucky breathes something, there might be a word in it but all Steve can feel is his breath on his skin. 

"I ran from them," Bucky continues after a moment. "Fled before they turned me into another tool to use. Had to ditch the arm so it couldn't be tracked. Morse was sent to find me, she almost had me too, I was so tired by then, but Nat helped me slip away and now here I am. Down the rabbit hole."

"It's better then Wonderland here."

Bucky laughs and Steve can't contain his shiver. He wants to be home now. He wants to see what Bucky looks like underneath those clothes. He watches to trace ribs and vertebrae and hips. He wants to hold him and protect him and watch the life come back to his eyes.

Steve wants to know that he put it there.

-

He isn't surprised when Maria Hill shows up at his door the next day. She at least waits until they're both awake. Bucky is swimming in one of Steve's shirt and he shies back when she enters. Steve doesn't miss that he's close to the fire escape.

"This is very domestic," Maria says, taking in the dishes from breakfast, the TV turned low.

"I'm not going back," Bucky whispers.

"You need to, Mr. Barnes."

Bucky's lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl.

"You're a danger and possible threat. We don't know if your programming is still intact. Not to mention we already have a James Barnes." Hill crosses her arms. "Ideally, we'll send you back to the reality you came from. You must have a life to get back to."

Bucky doesn't say anything and Hill's attention switches to Steve. "You understand me, right? It's not like James Barnes now has a twin, two of the same man in one universe is going to become complicated. We have experience with this happening so Tony is already at work."

"I understand," Steve says carefully. He looks at their coffee cups. "But I don't agree."

Hill purses her lips. "You have 24 hours for this little romp." And then she's gone. 

"I'm not going back," Bucky repeats into the quiet.

-

"Everyone says he has to go back."

Bucky, Steve's own Bucky, the one he grew up with, sits on the fire escape with him. The other Bucky is curled up asleep in the other room. Their 24 hours are ticking down.

"He didn't look like he has much to go back to," Bucky says. "I can't remember ever looking that bad."

"From what he's told me, he doesn't."

Bucky stares out over the city, seems to roll it all around in his head for a moment. "You trust him?"

Steve gives him a small smile. "He's James Barnes, how can I not?"

Bucky laughs. "You're so disgustingly predictable Rogers. You know I could be a bad guy in some other Earth. He could still be the Winter Soldier."

"Then what's he waiting for?"

"Good point. The Winter Soldier does like to get things done and get out. Not really the wine and dine and sleep in your bed type." Steve resists rolling eyes at him. "I have fake IDs, left over from the Winter Soldier," Bucky continues carefully. "SHIELD doesn't know about them, only Natasha." He glances at Steve out of the corner of his eye. "I've already talked to Tony, he can use the data from last time, fake it for the higher ups."

"Bucky…"

"They'll notice if Captain America disappears, but he can have a chance here, in this world." He pulls out an envelope and hands it over. Steve doesn't need to open it to feel the stiff edges of a passport and ID inside. "You always seem to like them better then me, when they show up."

Steve doesn't hesitate to pull Bucky into a hug. "They are only two. And you're the man I grew up with, no other Bucky can touch that. It's…complicated."

"You fell in love with me, and I can't love you back." He grins wryly as he pulls back. "I'm not the guy in your bed right now though."

Steve lets himself roll his eyes this time. "I can separate you from him, get out, don't you have a date?"

"I'm going." He pauses, halfway into the apartment and looks back at him. "Good luck, with everything. Nat's going to pick up a quick job in Mexico City, we'll be back in a few days."

Steve nods. "You're my best friend, Buck. You always have been."

One last smile and Bucky's gone. Steve looks down at the envelope he left behind, finally thumbing it open. Passports to multiple countries, drivers licenses, birth certificates. All with James Barnes' picture on them. Everything a man needs to disappear.

-

If SHIELD doesn't believes them when they say James Barnes agreed to return, no one says anything. 

Occasionally Steve gets a postcard with short messages on them. Never signed, never any forwarding addresses. Steve pins them up to his fridge and goes on with his life. Pretends something isn't missing.

-

He hates fighting robots, they're worse then any number of thing the bad guys have thrown at them. But robots. He always feels useless against robots. The shield can only do so much damage against a full armored machine.

He tries to get up high, drop down into the pilot seat from above and take them out that way. It's not as efficient as any of his other teammates. Natasha and Bucky are on other missions so he doesn't even have them to commiserate with.

For two of the machines, it works without a hitch.

The third sees him coming, he twists out of the way of the energy blast but gets caught in the side with a large metal fist. The force flings him into a brick building.

His earpiece gets knocked loose so he struggles back to his feet and out to the fight before anyone starts to worry. Carol is already flying closer but he flashes her a thumbs up and she dives back into the fight. 

Steve takes a deep breath, making sure he's not too broken and follows her into it. But he's a half step off. His shield damages one of them. He wedges it in the knee joint of another and uses it to launch himself up.

As it crashes down a stray blast from another catches him in the back. He manages to tuck into a roll before he crashes head first into the ground. By the time he's back on his feet, the fight is over.

All that's left is the cleanup which means another few hours before Steve can finally get home and collapse into his own bed. Bruce wanted him to go to Medical, get his back checked out in case of any burns but Steve refused. He just wants to be home. He falls asleep, stripped down to his underpants, still dirty from the fight but too exhausted to shower.

He wakes up to the smell of coffee.

-

Bucky ran for two years. He became James and Damien and Grigory. Sometimes, he was mistaken for the James Barnes native to this reality. He stumbled onto old friends and old enemies that he never knew.

It's easy to get a new arm made. He had to abuse some of James Barnes' connections to do it, but he doubted the other him would mind too much.

And the whole time he kept one eye on the news. Even when he thought he might finally be able to stop and settle for at least a little bit. He could never make himself let go, not completely.

So he saw as Captain America stumbled. He saw as he stood in front of a panel of newspapers and made himself smile because that is what he was supposed to do. But Bucky Barnes knew Steve Rogers, even if his Steve had never become big and strong. Some things never changed.

He slips back into the country, taking advantage of all the various security forces being focused on robots in Manhattan. 

Steve's place hasn't changed, except Steve doesn't seem to there so Bucky pulls up a chair and waits.

-

Steve stumbles out to the kitchen still in nothing but his briefs. Security isn't at the top of his mind. He's assuming no enemies would break in to make coffee, he just hopes that it isn't Tony to lecture him on his public speaking skills.

He's not expecting Bucky to be at his kitchen table cleaning out a handgun. He knows without a word that this is the other Bucky, the one he let go two years ago to protect from SHIELD. "I hope you're not here to prove SHIELD right." As soon as the words are out, he winces. No matter what Hill and Fury say, Steve knows Bucky, any Bucky, would never kill him.

The Winter Soldier maybe, even he eventually had to cave to that reality, but this man wasn't the Winter Soldier. No matter what conspiracy theories Fury dug up.

Bucky just shoots him a grin and points his finger at Steve. "Bang." He glances down at the slide from his real gun he still has in his other hand and then back up. "I'm not the Soldier."

"I know." Steve shuffles past him for the coffee, sighing at the bitter smell. Even though it's been years since the war, even for him, real coffee still feels like a luxury. "You shouldn't have come back." It's easier to say with his back to Bucky. If he looks at him, he won't be able to stop wanting.

He hears the soft thunk as Bucky puts down the part he was working on. "Do you want me to leave?" He's looking fixedly at his gun when Steve turns. All the parts laid out neatly, ready to be reassembled into one solid working gun. Steve wonders what the symbolism is.

The two of them and that gun. None of them in working condition.

"No." He moves back to the table, pushing aside the gun to make room to sit next to him. "I want you here but-"

"Then stop pushing me away. Let me stay here." His hands cup Steve's face, making him look at him. "I hate this. If I was just going to run forever, I might as well have gone back to my own world. At least there I knew what I was running from, I knew who wanted you dead."

"You said everyone wanted you dead," Steve murmurs.

"But here…the last time I met my Daisy Johnson, she had a bead on me and almost collapsed a building on my head. Here, she's just one more SHIELD agent who doesn't give a fuck about me. My Stark wants to cut my head open to figure out what brainwashing tools were used on me and what Zola did to me on that fucking table." He sighs and his hand starts to move away from Steve but Steve catches it. It's not helping either of them, but reaching for Bucky is instinct. "I didn't have a Steve back there." He leans in slowly, giving Steve a chance to stop him but all Steve can do is lean forward and meet him half way. "I've got gun oil on your face," Bucky whispers against his lips.

Steve laughs breathlessly and kisses him again. "Then help me get it off in the shower."

-

Bucky stares at himself in the mirror. He's too thin, he can't remember the last time he wasn't thin. There are too many scars that he doesn't remember how he got. He traces the line of one, a stab wound inches from his heart. So many close calls, so many times he'd wished things had gone a little bit differently. When he had nothing left to hope for.

He sees Steve out of the corner of his eye, watches him come up behind him, and rest his hands on Bucky's hips. His fingers trace the line of bone under his skin as he leans down to kiss his shoulder, tracing the seam of metal and flesh.

He doesn't remember how he lost it. There are flashes of a fall but then nothing. Bucky forces the fragment of a memory away and focuses on where he is. On Steve pressed against his back. Big and healthy and welcoming.

"I'm happy you're back," Steve says against his skin. "I missed you so much."

Bucky leans back into him, still staring at their reflection. Steve is so big. Everything is backwards. They're backwards. But they still fit together somehow. They'll always fit together he thinks. Even if they come from different realities. "Steve."

"Mhm?" He lifts his head, meeting Bucky's eyes in the mirror. So similar to the eyes that Bucky remembers from a lifetime ago but so worn and haunted.

"I saw the postcards." He had resisted reading them while waiting for Steve earlier.

"I kept all of them. Had to buy more magnets." Steve rests his chin on Bucky's shoulder.

"Let's get out of town tomorrow." He expects protests, some excuse about needing to wait.I have to check it out with the boss, or let the team know. But Steve just smiles. He cups Bucky's face, gently turning him away from the mirror so they're finally facing each other and rests his forehead on Bucky's. "You were an idiot for making me leave."

"I was trying to save your life."

"Stupid. Wasn't much of a life."

Steve kisses him. "But you came back," he whispers against Bucky's lips. "Tomorrow. Come back to bed." His fingers curl with Bucky's, gently leading him away. Bucky takes one last glance at the mirror but only sees their joined hands.


End file.
